140 NORTH AMERICAN BLATTIDAE 



1910. Ischuoptera pensylvanica inacqualis Rehn and Hebard, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. 

 Phila., 1910, p. 427, figs. II and 12. [Western material of intensive coloration.] 



This widely distributed species is clearly the most plastic of the 

 genus. The above synonymy has resulted, in part, from failure 

 to recognize as the same species, individuals differing in general 

 appearance and the number of synonymic names has also been 

 augmented by failure to associate the sexes, while in one case 

 immature material was described. 



Rehn and Hebard, in 19 10, corrected in large part this synonymy, 

 but unfortunately wrongly assigned Saussure's name coidoniaua"^ 

 to the species here properly designated as P. lata, and recognized 

 two geographic races in the present species. 



A decidedly larger series now before us shows clearly that, al- 

 though average differences in coloration occur in the western por- 

 tions of the distribution of pensylvanica (an intensive condition 

 there being normal), decided individual variation in size, form, 

 coloration, and, in the female, in degree of reduction in the organs 

 of flight, is everywhere pronounced. Differences in intensity of 

 coloration and, in the female, in degree of tegminal reduction, 

 were given as separating the supposed races, p. pensylvanica and 

 p. inaeqiialis. These features the material before us conclusively 

 proves worthless."^ 



-■^ Though the original description is very brief, we find an excellent figure given by 

 Saussure without name; Melang. Orth., i, pi. i, fig. 26, (1863). That author, the fol- 

 lowing year, gives a full discussion of couloniana and refers to this figure of the type of that 

 species, but incorrectly, as fig. 21 ; Mem. I'Hist. Nat. Mex., iv, p. 83. 



In the description, the tegminal width is given as 5 mm. This is decidedly incorrect, 

 as the figure shows, the exact dimensions of the figure being: length of pronotum, 4.7; 

 width of pronotum, 6.3; length of tegmen 24.5; width of tegmen 7.2 mm. That the 

 figure is correct is proven by our series, which show that no North American species, 

 with tegmen 24 mm. or over in length, has the tegminal width under 6 nun. This 

 error was largely responsible for Rehn and Hebard's incorrect association of the name in 

 1910 and Blatchley's suggestion of its position in 1904. 



--^ The western type was said to have the color pattern decidedly contrasted, with dis- 

 cal area of pronotum uniform. Specimens before us from Wildwood Junction, New 

 Jersey; Washington, District of Columbia, and Fredericksburg, Virginia, show a maxi- 

 mum of this condition, while specimens from Dallas County, Iowa, and Osage, Kansas, 

 are strongly recessive and intermediates occur throughout the series. It is true, how- 

 ever, that an intensive coloration is more frequently encountered in western material. 



The degree of tegminal reduction, though decided in a greater percentage of western 

 females and in a few from that region showing the maximum, is very considerable in 



